How to kill fake news: Pause before you share

"In an era where many of us rely solely on social media for our information, it's very easy for false information to spread very, very quickly," says visiting film-maker Kristin Pichaske. Photo / 123RF

Our "information ecosystem" has become polluted with fake news, a visiting Emmy Award-winning US documentary maker says – but the antidote to the problem could just rest in thinking before we click or share.

Kristin Pichaske, whose 25-year career has involved shooting pieces for such companies as Lucasfilm, Paramount Pictures and the New York Times, discussed the fake news phenomenon at this week's NZ International Science Festival in Dunedin.

It's a topic she's become very much familiar with, having recently completed work on a new series unravelling some of America's most enduring conspiracy theories.

Pichaske explained fake news – or "false news" as she much rather prefers to call it – can be broken down into misinformation, where somebody might share something incorrect unintentionally, and disinformation, where people are categorically trying to spread false beliefs.

"In an era where many of us rely solely on social media for our information, it's very easy for false information to spread very, very quickly."

More troublingly, disinformation was now being embraced by elites in a way that people weren't used to, she said, and this was having a big effect on the beliefs of the broader population.

Ironically, US President Donald Trump - whose false statements are being collected by Pulitzer Prize-winning blog PolitiFact.com - had seized the "fake news" term to discredit critical media.

While the most obvious problem was that it threatened our ability to make informed decisions about who to vote for or what policies to support, fake news had also driven a decline in trust.

"Our trust in government, the media and other civic institutions is at an all-time low," she said.

"When people lack trust, they tend to disengage from civil society. When we don't trust politicians, we don't vote.

"When we don't trust the media, we are more susceptible to 'alternative facts'.

"That can create a self-reinforcing loop that really threatens our ability to function as a democratic society."

Pichaske felt social media giants like Facebook still weren't doing enough to combat problem, but acknowledged the companies were pumping millions of dollars into cleaning up their platforms.

While censoring information deemed to be false was a tricky area, so too was simply debunking it.

According to one Dartmouth College academic she interviewed, this could lead people to cling to their misbeliefs even tighter – and if that belief was central to the person's identity, there was the added problem of confirmation bias.

"And the data clearly shows that debunks don't get as much traffic as the false news they are debunking.

"The original false story might be shared millions of times and the debunk only a few thousand.

"No one likes to be told they are wrong or that they have spread false information.

"And the debunk is rarely as interesting as the initial claim."

For media consumers, she had some simple advice: be wary of anything you read online that makes you feel angry, disgusted or smug.

Research showed that we were more likely to click and share content that stirred these kinds of "high arousal" emotions and the purveyors of fake news knew that.

"So when you feel an emotional response to a 'news story', it's best to interrogate whether perhaps you are being manipulated," she said.

"Another good piece of advice is to pause before you share. When we share something we get a little hit of dopamine — especially when our friends like or share our posts.

"That is how our information ecosystem has become so polluted."